Variety (magazine)
Variety (magazine)
Main page

Variety (magazine)

logo
Community Hub0 subscribers
What are your thoughts?
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Variety (magazine)

Variety is an American trade magazine owned by Penske Media Corporation. It was founded by Sime Silverman in New York City in 1905 as a weekly newspaper reporting on theater and vaudeville. In 1933, Daily Variety was launched, based in Los Angeles, to cover the motion-picture industry. Variety's website features entertainment news, reviews, box office results, plus a credits database, production charts and film calendar.

Variety has been published since December 16, 1905, when it was launched by Sime Silverman as a weekly periodical covering theater and vaudeville, with its headquarters in New York City. Silverman had been fired by The Morning Telegraph in 1905 for panning an act which had taken out an advert for $50. He subsequently decided to start his own publication that, he said, would "not be influenced by advertising." With a loan of $1,500 from his father-in-law, he launched Variety as publisher and editor. In addition to The Morning Telegraph, other major competitors at the time of the company's launch were The New York Clipper and the New York Dramatic Mirror.

The original logo, which is very similar to the current design, was sketched by Edgar M. Miller, a scenic painter, who refused payment. The front cover contained pictures of the original editorial staff: Alfred Greason, Epes W. Sargeant (Chicot or Chic), Joshua Lowe, and Silverman. The first issue contained a review by Silverman's son Sidne, also known as Skigie (based on the childish lisping of his name) who was claimed to be the youngest critic in the world at seven years old.

In 1922, Silverman acquired The New York Clipper which had been reporting on the stage and other entertainment since 1853, in an attempt to attract advertising revenue away from Billboard, following a dispute with William Donaldson, the owner of Billboard. Silverman folded it two years later after spending $100,000, merging some of its features into Variety. The same year, he launched the Times Square Daily, which he referred to as "the world's worst daily" and soon scrapped. During that period, Variety staffers worked on all three papers.

After the launch of The Hollywood Reporter in 1930, Silverman launched the Hollywood-based Daily Variety in 1933 with Arthur Ungar as the editor. It replaced the Variety Bulletin issued in Hollywood on Fridays as a four-page wraparound to the Weekly. Daily Variety was initially published every day other than Sunday but mostly on Monday to Friday. The Daily and the Weekly were initially run as virtually independent newspapers, with the Daily concentrating mostly on Hollywood news and the Weekly on U.S. and international coverage.

Silverman passed on the editorship of the Weekly Variety to Abel Green as his replacement in 1933. He remained as publisher until his death later that year, soon after launching Daily Variety. Silverman's son Sidne succeeded him as publisher of both publications but upon contracting tuberculosis in 1936 he could no longer take a day-to-day role at the paper. Green, the editor, and Harold Erichs, the treasurer and chief financial officer, ran the paper during his illness. Following Sidne's death in 1950, his only son Syd Silverman, was the sole heir to what was then Variety Inc. Young Syd's legal guardian Erichs, who had started at Variety as an office boy, assumed the presidency.

Ungar remained editor of Daily Variety until his death in 1950. He was followed by Joe Schoenfeld.

In 1953, Army Archerd took over the "Just for Variety" column on page two of Daily Variety and swiftly became popular in Hollywood. Archerd broke countless exclusive stories, reporting from film sets, announcing pending deals, and giving news of star-related hospitalizations, marriages, and births. The column appeared daily for 52 years until September 1, 2005.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.